Emily's Book of Strange
by anonymouth
Summary: Emily may be a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them, although she notices a lot of stupid things. She thinks far more than she ever lets on: about Miranda, Andrea, Runway ... life.  Contains Miranda/Andy hints from Emily's POV
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **The Devil Wears Prada and Emily's Book of Strange belong to Lauren Weisberger, 20th Century Fox, and Rob Reger respectively. No monetary gain or disrespect intended.

**Emily's Book of Strange ~**

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><p><em><strong> ~ Emily sees the world through a tangled web ~<strong>_

Emily often looked back on her childhood, though she would never admit it. She liked to remember the comfort of certain times, and the hurt of others, to remind her to keep ploughing forwards, even if sometimes it seemed as though she was fighting against a landslide.

She remembered snippets of conversation, and one thing that always stuck with her was the rhymes and sayings that her grandmother would come out with, mainly because they made no sense to her at the time. Some of them still didn't, like the parting goodbyes at the front door that always ended with '_Don't take any wooden nickels.' _But some she now understood; some she had lived in; some she had observed from a distance.

_Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. _

She had always liked that one, if only at first because it rhymed. She liked the structure of rhymes. She would lay in bed and repeat it over and over in her mind, not because she took the words to heart but because the lull of the mantra soothed her mind enough to sleep.

As she had grown she had learnt the meaning behind the mantra, and thought it somewhat ironic that she had always liked it, because now she lived it; her and the hundreds of others she had come to know or know of.

It started when she moved to New York – the weaving – and now, true to the saying, life was tangled. Emily lived in a complicated web, intricate patterns of false politeness and niceties, the foundations resting on denial or feigned ignorance of truth. She sometimes thought of her Grandmother, and shook her head sadly, in much the same way that she imagined her heart-mender would have done, had she still been alive.

Sometimes in the dead of night – or morning – she couldn't stop her mind from mapping the beautifully dangerous patterns of the web that had started as a single thread and that they had all managed to develop into this ever-expanding, overlapping pattern, and the thoughts would threaten to to send her into a blind panic. After all, once trapped in a web the only escape that a fly ever had was to be eaten. Or trampled. But when her thoughts turned as dark as the view from her window, she would see the web in her mind's eye, the silver tendrils reflecting and shining even when there was no light, and she would follow a thread to the edge of the centre into which she would stare, Zen-like, until her breathing returned to normal, even if her heartbeat didn't.  
>For the patterns, intricate as they were, all led back to the center eventually, and though the path was littered with debris, momentarily marring the fragile perfection, Emily took a masochistic comfort in the fact that Miranda Priestly was always, <em>always<em>, at the center.

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><p><strong>I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. There are 12 sub-headings from Emily's Book of Strange that I am utilizing, and you may be pleased to know that I've already written it all ... just waiting for beta-ing on a couple. So the next chapter will be uploaded very very soon, as long as reviews indicate that they are wanted :)<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

_**~ A picture speaks a thousand weirds ~**_

Nigel had dropped the magazine onto her desk, staring pointedly at it. She frowned at him, but deigned to lower her eyes to the page he had neatly folded and the image he had diligently circled with a marker. She stared at it for a few moments, shock numbing her ability to form a cohesive thought, her blood pounding in her ears.

"Something seem a little _weird _to you?" Nigel asked, tapping his pen against the picture. She stared at it for a moment longer than she would have liked, before turning her attention back to her computer screen with what she fervently hoped was a believable nonchalance.

"No."

Nigel smirked, but to her relief he turned to leave. He was stepping inside the elevator when he turned back to face her.

"Oh, Emily? Try not to look that disgusted when Miranda shows up, won't you? She's a terror to reign in once she starts firing people."

But it was disgusting, really, Emily thought as she studied the picture, which to her spoke of more weirdness than her official written documents did, what with her utter refusal to abandon some British English spelling of words (she swore that 'labeling' and the like looked too skinny with one 'l' and pointless 'u's made her feel safe) and resolutely adopting American spelling for others (she really never understood why it mattered whether blond's had an 'e', and sometimes a 'z' made a word more satisfying than an 's' ever could).

Andrea Sachs had morphed into this _Andréa _character, this smiling, apparently indisfuckingspensible character. She was like the word 'fishes' to the British. Accepted by the majority with only a slight shrug at the abandonment of age-old Proper Grammar, but to the few that didn't see the need to add anymore letters to an already acceptable singular and plural word – fish, after all, were just that and were fine with it, thank you very much – it was an abomination. A threat.

_Andréa.  
><em>The word was pure sex, oozing smoke and ice and a playfulness that an _Emily_ just didn't muster in Miranda's tone.  
>Emily flipped the magazine over as violently as she dared in the quiet office.<p>

It _was_ disgusting, really it was _disgusting_, she thought, how eight months of Andrea bloody Sachs and everything she knew was turned on its axis. Despite herself, she turned the magazine over again, the picture enticing her, enrapturing her even as her hands itched to destroy it, like it held the power to destroy her. The genuine smile Miranda had for the new Emily; the sparkling eyes Miranda aimed at new Emily; the hand not-quite-caressing the small of new Emily's back. Emily had been at Miranda's side for longer than her current husband had, and never once had Miranda even turned to look her fully in the eye, and now here she was concentrating all of her attention on her second assistant, even though Donatella and Madonna were stood right beside them, and what really got to Emily was that she couldn't work out why. Why Miranda seemed so enraptured by Andrea? Sure, she could pass off the photo as a brief moment in time, blown out of context, but there were other moments that flashed through her mind, nagging at her sensibilities, and the more she stared at the photograph, the more upset she became. Emily had order, she knew order, knew routine; Miranda always had routine, even if it did appear to some to be an ordered chaos, but now there was Andrea and she was disturbing everything Emily worked to achieve, and what was worse was that Miranda was letting her, her of all people!

Emily caught her wistful look reflected in her computer screen and she snorted, flicking the magazine away again to recoup before she had to gaze upon the real thing. The picture spoke of climate change, which normally spelled disaster around a glacier.


	3. Chapter 3

_**~Emily hears everything, and listens to nothing~**_

The first time she heard a rumour - _the _rumour - she literally stumbled to a halt in her exit of the toilet cubicle, her hand frozen on the door handle.

"Six years ... _six years_, and she calls me the wrong name. Six months and it's all _Ahndrayah Ahndrayah._ I am telling you... "

But whatever it was that the whining voice was telling wasn't told. Emily exited the cubicle with a sniff, looking the women up and down and wondering how on earth either of them expected anyone to remember them at all, dressed like that. She moved to the basins, aware of the stares as she fixed her hair and make-up.

"The old Emily," she was sure she heard under a breath as the women moved to the exit, and though she thought she should she couldn't summon the energy to berate them. After all, they were being ridiculous, she asserted, and so she would not listen, like she never did when people were ridiculous. On the third attempt she managed a steadying hold on the door handle and made her way out.

_The new Emily._ And beneath it was what they all knew – the _better_ Emily, the _Emily_ She prefers. But if she didn't listen, then it wouldn't be real. Even when she hears it again.

Then the photo appeared – _that _photo, that insignificant godforsaken photo tucked away in the pages of some insignificant godforsaken magazine, and Miranda was _smiling _at _'Ahndraayah'_ and her eyes were _shining _at _'Ahndraayah'_ and her hand was _touching – touching! – 'Ahndraayah'! _And suddenly everyone was talking, even in the corners where they daren't even breathe before, and she hears everything they say about the golden assistant and the unfolding tale of the taming of the dragon but all Emily – _old _Emily – does is her job, which never included listening to idle whimsical gossip. And so she turned her nose up and sniffed and denied and berated and it didn't take much to convince herself that she really didn't want to listen anyway, because if she didn't, then obviously it couldn't be true.

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><p><strong>Sorry for the delay. Thanks for the reviews so far... I hope they continue :)<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

_**~Emily may speak softly, but she is always loud and clear~**_

"You do not touch Miranda. Ever." Emily's voice was by no means loud, but there was a power in it that even Andrea recognised, if her unusual silence was any indication. She wasn't sure why she felt the need to reiterate this particular rule of etiquette to Andrea, and in quite such a forceful manner; all she knew was that she had to resist the urge to grab the hapless second assistant by her broad shoulders and shake the message into her. The girl was different to all the others, and though Emily was sure that she would be gone before the next issue of _Runway _went to print, she had to make sure that what Andrea did in the meantime didn't manage to turn the world inside out, because there was just something about her, and different around Miranda set Emily's nerves on edge.

"What if she touches me?"

Emily rolled her eyes. Inane questions; she would be lucky if she lasted a week.

"Miranda does not touch assistants," she scoffed.

Emily would later lament the fact – many times – that Miranda would never stick to her own rules.

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><p><strong> ~0~<strong>

"Well I don't know, I mean, she's gotta be going for some sort of mid-life crisis thing, right? You know, like Madonna kissing Britney. Keeps her in the papers, right? But it's not right, is it? I mean, first the assistant, God knows who'll be next."

"You don't know they're fucking... "

"Oh, come on! You saw that photo yesterday. And the woman is all over her! They're all over each other!" the blond put on a sickeningly affected tone, "'_Ahndrayah...Yes, Miranda, no Miranda, stick your fingers in me Miranda!' _It's disgusting. And I don't know, but the way she looks at me sometimes... "

The blonde trailed off as Emily came into their view. For a second she looked petrified, until she squared her shoulders and smirked.

"What do you think, Emz? Miranda fucked you over for the newer model huh? You should think of filing, too," she snickered.

Emily took a deep breath, slowly stepping closer to the model until she had no choice but to all but stumble back into her seat

"Now you listen to me," Emily said, in an almost perfectly Miranda-chilled voice. "This is _Miranda Priestly_ you are talking about. And regardless of your personal feelings, childish, petty and jealous that they are, might I remind you that she employs you, keeping you and your sad little cronies head and shoulders above the rest. There are a million girls out there waiting for the opportunity to take your place; a million girls who would be found by Miranda, nurtured by Miranda, and would vow loyalty to her in a heartbeat, as you yourself have supposedly done. She chose you. That means she also has the power to ruin you. Filing a non-existent sexual harassment suit would only accentuate the fact that you are desperately clutching at straws to keep your flagging career afloat, and there's not a person in this building that would testify otherwise. I don't think it wise to give her any greater cause to ruin you than your current shabby attitude already is, don't you think?"

As Emily spoke, her voice got steadily quieter, but sharp enough that it could slice through metal. The model looked her up and down, but Emily could see the flash of uncertainty in her eyes, just before she relented.

"I didn't mean anything by it. I was just-"

"Yes?" Emily cut her off, crisply.

The model lowered her eyes, and Emily felt power surge through her. No wonder Miranda utilized her command of linguistics so often.

"Nothing."

Emily walked off, shaking her head inwardly at the utter disregard the woman had for Miranda. She chose not to listen to the nagging voice, eery in its similarity to Andrea's, that perhaps the self-centered model had been somewhat right. Emily had learnt from the best: find your own weaknesses, use them to your advantage or bury them deep. In the relative safety of her mind, she allowed herself to cautiously admit that she wasn't quite sure which she had managed to do with her jealousy.


	5. Chapter 5

_**~Emily may be little, but she thinks big~**_

When Emily first moved to New York and landed her job as Miranda's assistant, she hadn't thought of herself as fat. After two days, she couldn't imagine not being anything else. She went on a crash diet until she could fit a size zero if she held her breath, and her frame matched her diminutive height. She practiced in the mirror until she was satisfied that she could still draw herself up enough to look down her nose if the need arose.

Emily had always been seen as the baby: at home because she was an only child, and at school because she was the smallest. None of this matteredin the real world at _Runway,_ of course, but if it had, Emily was sure that she would be known as something equally as demeaning, and so she gave no one any opportunity to foist any such label upon her; what she lacked in stature she made up for in attitude and ambition.

She had vision, had Emily, and if after a year she was still Miranda's assistant, she told herself that she just needed a little more time to prove herself. After two years, when Nigel told her that Miranda would never appreciate her putting her life on hold, Emily shrugged it off, trying to convince him and herself that the art department, or _Runway Francais _would still be there in a few months' time.

And when Stephen filed for divorce and Andrea departed –something that, despite her previous musing, had even shocked Emily – Emily was more convinced than ever that Miranda would need a steady presence by her side for a little while longer.

Nigel told her that she needed to 'think bigger' and she did, she had, but when she thought about it, what, really, could be any bigger than being second-in-command charge of Miranda's life? She had thought big; she was by the side of the only Queen that would ever matter in her world.


	6. Chapter 6

___**Emily has a white outfit she uses as a disguise.  
><strong>__**Mary Jane shoes are the best for sneaking around in **___

After a year of working for Miranda, Emily no longer felt the need to be unassuming about her role. After all, a year of working amongst some of the most beautiful people in the world, assisting _the _most beautiful of all tended to have an effect on ones delusions of grandeur. She wasn't as self-absorbed to think that she would get recognised whenever she left the house, but seeing the well-dressed at every turn meant that she would never dream of leaving the house in anything less than a perfect state. There were some occasions, however, when Emily would feel a wave of nostalgia. It would hit her randomly, on some idle evening heading back to her apartment when she would see young couples, parents – _everyday people –_ walking the streets with seemingly no care as to how their jumpers and pants were totally mismatched, or their garish hats or shoes really had no place within the world around them, and she would wonder what it would be like to just ... not care, if only for an hour. On one such occasion, she gave in to impulse – something which she was almost sure she had forgotten how to do – and before she could think herself out of it, had bought an unassuming, _everyday person_ outfit. Online, of course.

She had almost forgotten about her impulse buy by the time it arrived, but when she opened the package and gazed upon it her heart beat just a little bit faster, and the butterflies dancing in her stomach and throat had threatened to overwhelm her.

Convincing herself of her stupidity, se had resolved to bin the outfit upon her return from work one evening, when she looked round her, and felt a sudden thrill at the thought of becoming someone else, just for a while. And so she donned the white woolly hat, sneakers, and shell suit and ventured outside. She walked past the places that she would never dare to be seen in without Chanel, and took a little jog around Central Park, confident in the fact that she wouldn't be recognised – who, after all, would ever dress themselves in such cheap fabric, and all in white, no less? –and relished the fact that for just a short amount of time, she was inside the outside again, and she would be the only one who ever knew.

** ~o0o~**

Emily would always remember the night that she swore to never enter Miranda's house in clacking shoes again. She had always been careful not to make too much noise, having been warned about previous assistant's mishaps and their current employment statuses, but she had managed to fly under Miranda's radar fairly successfully whilst still in her heels. She'd had one close shave when one of the twins had lured her upstairs. She had belatedly realised her mistake, and had put all her stealth into removing her shoes and break-necking it out of the house. She hadn't been sure if she'd imagined the flash of white she saw before she managed to hurl herself out of the front door, but her fears had been confirmed when for the next week, Miranda phoned her every morning at five, and didn't stop with her orders until well into the evening. After that episode Emily made doubly sure to adopt the persona of a deaf-mute ninja, a strategy that after a month put her back in as much favour as she'd ever had with the editor.

But there was that once – and no matter how successfully Emily thought she had put it from her mind, there would be occasions when she put her key in the door of Miranda's townhouse that panic threatened to overwhelm her – that had made Emily vow, even under threat of unemployment should Miranda find her in her hallway barefoot, that never again would she wear heels in Miranda's home. She had indeed resorted to entering barefoot for the first few months after _it _happened, but then after rationalizing that the threat of the fashion maven's wrath was a sufficiently, terrifyingly realistic one, she had obtained a pair of flat, thin-soled and rather stylish – as stylish as they could be without any sort of heel, anyhow – Mary Jane's. She kept them under lock and key in her desk, wrapped in a Calvin Klein scarf, slipped them on when she was safely ensconced inside the chauffeur service car or a cab, and after a month wondered if the skill of stealth she had mastered in them could somehow be worded appropriately on her resumé.

She had seen Stephen but a handful of times since the incident, but each time her stomach rolled; she could smell the scotch on his breath; feel the heat of his hard body; the breath of his hissed words on her neck. Each time she saw him, she had to violently push the thoughts away from her mind, as she had had to push him away, but the thoughts were sometimes as stubborn as the man himself had been, and so she ingeniously found ways to distance herself from his presence – another skill which she humourlessly thought she should be able to add to her resumé. She sometimes wondered if Miranda had noticed – the woman noticed _everything _– but then she reasoned that the times the three of them all featured in the same room were so few and far between as to render her actions negligible.

At first she had been profoundly angry, after her initial paralyzing fear had settled, and had seen herself in equal parts marching to the police department, and breaking down in front of Miranda, telling everyone what a perverted creep her latest husband was. But over a year of working for Miranda had left its indelible mark, and at the end of that route she saw no good for herself whatsoever, even if she was believed. He was after all a powerful businessman in his own right, and she was but a lowly assistant – such indiscretions were commonplace, a badly kept secret amongst the world. So he had copped a feel, so what? She could imagine it, and so she kept quiet, knowing that he would too. He never showed any signs of coming near her again, but she religiously changed into her Mary Jane's every night to deliver the Book, until it was no longer her job.

A part of her felt that she should warn Andrea when it became her job to start delivering the Book, the part that remembered what it was like to show concern, the part that was horrified at Stephen, or any other man, cornering anyone the way he had her. She had given Andrea the key along with a short summary of the do's and don'ts and in the end, decided not to mention anything about Stephen and his behaviour that one time. After all, she reasoned, it was only the once, and it had been towards her, and perhaps he took her reaction to heart and would never try anything like it again, and he had been drinking and-what-if-she mentioned-it-and-he-never-tried-anything-with-Andrea-and-Miranda-found-out-Emily-had-accused-him-like-that? And anyway, if Andrea only followed the rules about being quiet – Emily had fervently emphasized the need for quiet, which she thought was warning enough, really – she wouldn't need to be wary of Stephen at all. Emily tried to convince herself quite thoroughly of this, and if there was a little nagging thought that perhaps she _wanted _him to accost Andrea, _wanted _Andrea to not be Miranda's golden girl anymore, then she put it firmly to the back of her closeted mind and told herself that she was only human after all.

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><p><strong><strong>_**Thanks for the reviews so far ... much appreciated :D**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**~Emily doesn't swear, she curses.  
><strong>__**Emily drinks bloody mary mixers**._

When she first began working at Elias-Clarke, Emily had only ever been drunk once, in her early teens. Alcohol had never really appealed to her, but after a week of working for Miranda, Emily began to resent the 21 age restriction law. She was at her wits end one Friday night, and seriously considering a change of career option when she found herself quite literally taken under Nigel's wing and frog-marched to the opening of a chic new club.

"The secret to longevity," he'd said, "is that discretion is the better part of valour, grow an ice pack around your feelings, but most important of all..." he bowed after he led her to the bar and brought her to a stop in front of two ready-made drinks, "...learn where to get the very best Martinis."

She had learnt quickly that night what the best tasted like, and indeed all the best places to find them, although it took a few more nights out to actually remember where they were by the next day.

It was on such a next day, with Miranda safely ensconced in The Hamptons for the weekend after having made Emily's Friday sufficiently hellish, that she awoke with no small amount of confusion on a strange couch, smelling very strongly of masculinity. Eyes widening as she frantically tried to remember, her heart stopped as the door to what she presumed was a bedroom opened, before she burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?" Nigel asked, as he entered his kitchen.

"I thought I'd come home with a man."

Nigel had almost refused her a hangover remedy, but upon conceding that the slight was only to his imaginary butchness, he handed her a small tumbler of blood red, blood thick liquid which she thought twice about drinking until the pounding in her head reached an all new severity. After suppressing her gag reflex, she had to admit that the vile mixture of vodka, tomato juice and some "Special Nigel Sauce" was rather effective.

"You swear," Nigel told her bluntly one morning on the phone, foregoing the apparently outdated greeting of hello. At Emily's stunned silence he proceeded to recount the events of the previous night, at one point causing her to bury her head under her pillow. She let him talk as she dragged herself out of bed and resorted to an alka-seltzer to calm her screaming body. She came round at his fourth rendition of her supposed foul-mouthed ranting at various cab drivers.

"Nigel, I do not swear, I curse. Ladies curse, and only ever with due cause."

She hung up, and though there was no one to see her, she harumphed as she thought an affronted lady would, however when she met Nigel for an afternoon soiree, she ordered a rather peculiar looking Bloody Mary garnished with lemon, celery, olive, cheese and a cold cut (she kept the lemon) and resolved to drink nothing stronger for a very long while.


	8. Chapter 8

_**~Emily has 23 black dresses with 23 uses.~**_

The first black dress Emily remembered wearing was for her grandmother's funeral. She had been twelve years old and her mother had bought it. It hung on her wardrobe door the night before the funeral, and Emily hadn't been able to take her eyes off it. It had seemed to her that she developed tunnel vision, the light from her window solely focused upon the dress, keeping her eyes glued to it, sucking the rest of her world from around her. She had slid into it in the morning and pinned a pressed sunflower to the front, the last thing her grandmother had given her.

Everyone had commented on how pretty she looked, and she smiled graciously, knowing that the flower brought out the beauty in everything.  
>She kept the dress, and it still resided in her house, having survived a move across the Atlantic, sunflower intact. Sometimes in a random search of her house she came across it, and it made her heart twinge, reminding her of her grandmother, and of the beauty that could be found in the simple things.<p>

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><p><strong>~o0o~<strong>

Emily had her first job at fifteen: she was a sales assistant in a local shoe shop. She had made her very first CV and was preparing to attend her very first interview when she realised that she had nothing suitable to wear. Desperate to look mature enough she had emptied her mother's wardrobe, finally stumbling across a mid-thigh length black dress that she deemed interview-able. Upon returning home, glowing with pride at her newly acquired part-time employment status, she blushed profusely under her mother's scrutiny.

"Suits you," her mother had said.

And so Emily kept the dress, wore it a few more times, and always looked upon it as her independent milestone.

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><p><strong>~o0o~<strong>

Emily visited New York at seventeen, and instantly fell in love. She looked up at the towering buildings and decided that she didn't always want to be on the outside looking in; she wanted – _needed – _to find a way to belong in this city, in this world. Two years later she moved there, two suitcases, a small inheritance from her grandmother, and only a teenager's naive hope of instantly fitting in. She picked up a newspaper for the job section, and a magazine to alleviate her boredom. The newspaper she never opened.  
>She stared at the two black dresses she had set out on her bed ready for the interview at Elias-Clarke, and tried to rationalize a choice. At the end of the day when she returned home, exhausted, she packed the other dress ready to return to the store. She kept the dress she wore because it earned her first Miranda-nod.<p>

She met Nigel on her second day at Elias-Clarke, and thought him well on his way to being a Miranda clone. He looked her up and down and raised is eyebrows.

"Good," he said, and Emily began to change her mind. "Good is Cosmo."

Her face fell again, and he smirked. "Never show your hand," he said, and she made to frown, but then understanding clicked and she managed to keep her face neutral.

"This ... this is _Runway,_" he said and with a flourish, opened the door to the Closet. "And you need to step it up a gear."

She forgot about her poker face as she gazed upon shelf after shelf of every garment she had ever heard of, and quite a few she hadn't. She stumbled as Nigel pulled her along, randomly selecting items and draping them over her.

"Now, you need to learn how to accessorize."

She left the Closet feeling like a Princess. Rich, beautiful, and slightly overwhelmed. Nigel fast became her go-to for help and advice on her new outfits and reinventing her worn ones, and when it came time for her to attend her first official function with Miranda, Nigel made her a vision in black, so much so that she was not even too bothered that she ate one too many celery sticks at lunch.

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><p><strong>~o0o~<strong>

It became a routine before social functions; she met Nigel in the closet, and if he didn't have anything already to hand they looked through the racks until he nodded seriously, much like Miranda at a run-through. She stood like a doll until he was satisfied, and sometimes they'd look forward to the night ahead by toasting with a small drop of vodka that Nigel kept in his desk for such evenings.

As time went on, Emily became more confident and more vocal in the choices, until one evening she had already dressed and was studying herself in the mirror when Nigel met her. He smiled – definitely not in the style of Miranda at any run-through she'd attended – and turned her around. He flicked at an invisible piece of lint on her one-shouldered Valentino dress and leant his chin on her bare shoulder.

"Very well done. You must have learnt from the best."

They toasted with a vodka, and left the building together, smiled together on the red carpet, and relaxed at the end with a Martini and a Bloody Mary.

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><p><strong>~o0o~<strong>

She run to him once more in a blind panic, when the dress she was supposed to be wearing disappeared from the Closet only an hour before the Met gala. He zoomed through the shelves with the aura of one who knew he had saved a person before and could do so again, and by the end had her firmly ensconced in a simple Chanel black off the shoulder dress, black Louboutins with forest green sole, and a dazzling centerpiece of a green necklace, bringing out her eyes.

Emily had twenty-three black dresses, chosen by Nigel, or at the least approved by Nigel, and she looked at them all with fondness. They continued to prepare for functions together until Andrea came along, and suddenly Emily was not the one that needed running through the closet, or tutoring in accessorizing and matching, and so her and Nigel's meetings before such functions became almost non-existent. They passed each other one afternoon; her taking her chosen outfit out, and Nigel dragging a witless Andrea in. Nigel allowed Andrea to plod on in front of him so he could grab Emily by the wrist and give her a twirl. He scrutinized the armful of garments she carried, and whistled.

"My oh my, looks like my work here is done."

He smiled at her, and gave her arm a squeeze before rolling his eyes and making to follow Andrea.

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><p>They still met for drinks, and classed each other as friends – as far as friendship goes in such a world – and she was eternally grateful for the survival guide he passed on to her through their dressing sessions, but on occasions, perhaps when she'd had a particularly taxing day and couldn't for love nor money work out if the Jimmy Choos suited the Valentino or the Tom Ford better, or when Andrea went skipping off to the Closet, she wished that she were still clueless enough to be able to take refuge under Nigel's wing.<p>

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><p><em><strong>So, seeing as I have all the chapters written already, I figure I may as well just post them all here first as last now. If there's a particular problem with any chapter then, I'll just go back to edit it. But to know, I need reviews. Cough cough hint hint :)<strong>_


	9. Chapter 9

_**~Emily can see through you.  
><strong>__**Emily records her nightmares.~**_

Emily has kept a dream diary since she was little. She likes to look over them sometimes for they are filled with vivid, childish descriptions of the monsters, animals and people that figured in her sleep, reminding her of a time when reality and fantasy could blur without causing harm to anyone.

As she grows, her entries become less frequent, and when she moves to New York, she keeps a sketchpad in her bedside drawer more out of habit than anything else.

After a while working for Miranda, she finds herself waking through the night more frequently, her mind full of images and words that she can't decipher, but that are alarmingly similarly themed. At three am on one such occasion, she grabs her pad and pencil and lets her hand fly over the pages, drawing and writing with fervor until her mind is blank and her eyes begin to droop again. She puts the pad away and doesn't get a chance to open it again until the next time she awakens. This happens on many more occasions, and it is only a few more months down the line that Emily gets a chance to sit down and look through her early hours' work.

She is a little disconcerted, but not surprised, to see how much Miranda features in her dreams, and in the numerous different forms she manifests herself. Even her dreams are tangled in the web, although she doesn't know why she is so annoyed by this; a dream, upon waking, is no less a wish and no less a real memory that haunts you.

She identifies three main categories of dreams: the sex dreams, the 'Miranda and me happily ever after' nice dreams (which personally she found equally as terrifying as the next category), and the Miranda-devil-devour-you-alive-no-escape dream.

Emily watches the people who circle Miranda, and takes great satisfaction in the fact that she can see through them, and knows more about them than they know about themselves. She watches the way they eye Miranda – or avoid doing so – and can tell what sort of a night, which category of dream, they've had. She knows what they think, what they whisper in the dark recesses of their mind, because they are haunted by the same things that she is; she sees it clearly on them, in them.

Under pain of torture, she vowes that she will never end up like the people that she watches, all open and raw and waiting to be consumed by their dreamworld, and so she keeps her dream diaries under lock and key, emptying her mind into them whenever she has to because she swears that no one will be able to read her. Especially when she isn't ready to read herself.


	10. Chapter 10

_**~It doesn't matter which way you go, as long as you get lost~**_

Emily is amazed when she is informed by a rather harried-looking Human Resources employee that yes, in fact, she _is _entitled to a holiday, and regardless of what Miranda Priestly thinks or says – this bit said in a rather frenzied burst as the woman glanced over her shoulders often enough to be indicative of a nervous twitch – Emily can take up to fourteen unharassed days separately or as a block, still receive pay, and be sure of a job when she returns.

Emily had tried once for a holiday request, and it caused such grief that she decided against a reschedule, until it came to the attention of HR that in two years and seven months, she had not had a single day off.

So it is with a shaky hand that Emily submits her request for two weeks holiday in a month and a half's time, and though this time Miranda had evidently been threatened with enough to not change and then cancel the dates on a whim, Emily still refuses to believe that she will escape with a whole holiday to herself until it actually happens.

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><p>The first two days she spends close to the Elias-Clarke building, frequenting Starbucks more often than she does on Miranda's behalf, refusing to believe that her phone isn't about to ring and her world collapse around her ears for daring to be away from the office. On the morning of the third day, Emily allows herself a small smile, and when the world doesn't implode, she snuggles back under her duvet and stays there until lunchtime.<p>

On the fourth morning, after checking to make sure that her cell phone was in fact all in working order, she smiles again, a tad wider this time, relocates to the couch and spends the day watching trashy movies and playing computer games. On her way to bed, she pulls out her travel case, and packs a few essentials.

The fifth morning sees her awaken far later than she has in the last two years, seven months, and when she sees that the suitcase is still there, still packed and that the world is still turning around her, she giggles as she gets up and dressed, the reality of her situation sinking in and determination to _do something_ filling her with excitement as it hadn't since she had moved to New York.

She dons a Donna Karan dress – black, mid-thigh, black stockings – accessorizes accordingly, picks up her suitcase and instructs the waiting cab to take her to LaGuardia airport. She feels a thrill like no other when she enters the airport and recognizes no one. She locates the flight information boards, closes her eyes, points her finger, and when she opens them, books the flight to Memphis International Airport.

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><p>Emily stays in Memphis, enjoys the sights, books herself into a different hotel on the second night because she can't remember her way back to her original one, and then finds herself after four days packing up her things and catching a bus, forcing herself to be ignorant of its destination. She is nervous at first; her life has been made up of regiment for most of her adult life now, but she doesn't want to become completely oblivious to the outside world, or to forget the exhilaration she used to feel at the thought of adventure.<p>

She soon settles into the thought that she is 'travelling', even if it is by bus through a suburban housing estate. She has no idea where she is, or has been, or is going to, and instead of feeling vulnerable, she merely settles in to the moment, and she has a sudden flash of what it must feel like to be Andrea: to not feel obliged, or tied, or to place anything above its worth to her personally, and she admits that she feels powerful, in a way that she can't imaging feeling within the confines of the everyday world.


	11. Chapter 11

_**~Emily can add and subtract people in her mind.~**_

Ironically, Emily thinks now, her grandmother always told her that she was too trusting, a fact proven on many occasions where Emily would 'just hold' stolen sweets (and later on cigarettes) for her friends, amongst other things.

Her time at _Runway_ has taught her something that she's not quite sure her grandmother would be proud of now: how to calculate.

She watches everyone she comes across, and soon identifies three groups of people: those who genuinely have power, those who think they have power, and those who wish they have power.

Amongst the genuines are, of course, Miranda, and Nigel to a certain extent. They travel with a constant aura of authority, relevant mask always in place, and never an emotion out of line. They are the people that others naturally flock to, and they can remain safe in the knowledge that whilst they are masters of working a room, there really isn't much need for them to do so. Sure, they may crumble behind firmly locked doors, but no one would ever be any the wiser.

Those who think they have power amuse Emily to no extent. They come in two sub-sections; the corporate and the workers. She sees them puff themselves up, fake smiles shining with self-importance, and the always present 'Don't you know who I am?' attitude. Both sub-sections carry these traits, but the workers are the only ones that sometimes she forgets her own mask in front of and can't resist flashing them a smirk and turning away with a toss of her hair. She knows which 'power thinkers' it is safe to be seen with for any length of time; she knows when it's time to add people to her list of movers and shakers, and when to subtract them; she definitely knows not to spend too much time pandering to any of them lest she gets dragged down when they inevitably fall from grace.

She watches Irv Ravitz, a corporate 'power thinker' and wonders if he realises his inability to command a room, and that's why he always breaks out in a sweat and has to remind people how much money he makes. Irv thinks he has power, but he loses control; he crumbles before he locks the door, and she knows it won't be long before his illusion is shattered.

She spends day after day in the company of 'power thinking' workers; models, assistants and the like, and goes home at night thanking her lucky stars that she is better than them.

Emily quickly realises that the 'power wishers' can be manipulated and cajoled into doing almost anything, especially with a few strategically placed comments. She is content to use them to aid her job and her own goals, but she knows that these people will never amount to anything more than they already are. Desperation, after all, is not a good look on anyone. Sometimes she finds herself in situations where some fast calculations are needed, and she finds she needs to become acquainted with a few more of these types of people for the time being, but Emily will always realise when it is time to subtract them, and she does it as bluntly as possible, because after all, in geometry there are no grey areas, just like life. There is black and white, power and not, and Emily knows where she belongs.

Emily likes her theory, it gives her a template to work off, and in truth she likes to be the one with the power to add and subtract people from her own, and sometimes by proxy, Miranda's life, too, and if one Andrea Sachs comes along and blows her theorizing out of the water, Emily tells herself that it is only normal to have anomalies. After all, Einstein must have had problems, too.


	12. Chapter 12

_**~Emily isn't scared of monsters; she creates Zonsters.  
><strong>__**Zonsters are created in Emily's mind lab.~**_

Emily doesn't think Miranda a monster any more than she thinks of herself as an angel. If this job has taught her anything it's that a healthy dose of realism should always accompany ones thoughts lest they catch you out at some inopportune moment. Emily is a pragmatist by now. She knows that there's not much Miranda will not do to succeed and to stay successful, but she also knows that there's not much that she herself would not do to assist her. You did your best for Miranda and Miranda would ... well, it didn't matter what she would do when you did a good job, but rather what she could do if you didn't. Not that Emily was scared, because it was a web, where anyone with an ounce of self-preservation would clamber over anyone else who got stuck before they got chewed up or cut loose, dead. Yes, Miranda was ruthless, but monsters ... well, they battled with no rhyme nor reason and if Miranda had anything, it was definitely reason.

Some people Emily comes across labour under some superfluous notions of morality and loyalty, things which simply have no place in the real world – her world. Even Andrea Sachs learned this, at Emily's own expense. She couldn't really be angry; after all, she had somehow stumbled momentarily in the web and there was, after all, no room for weakness, but the usurping of her place on the Paris trip by Andrea had certainly not helped their personal relations. Emily would admit only to herself that some feelings of resentment still lingered, but Emily had learned never to dwell for that only meant getting stuck, and so she resolved to up her game again; to not become like the others that she had to siphon away from Miranda. They were not monsters either, but, well, if they couldn't handle the pace they needed to be cut loose for the greater good.

No, the word monster implies a fear, to Emily's mind, and in no alternate or fantastical universe would Emily ever admit that Andrea Sachs instills a nagging fear in her subconscious, and sets her nerves on edge. But then, on the other hand, those feelings almost make her want to ride in and stand between the other assistant and her boss, white horse reined and silver sword in hand to break the ridiculous, unprecedented bond obviously growing between them. It seems that, yet again, Andrea is the exception, and Emily by now almost accepts that her exception is the rule. Almost.

Monster definitely wasn't the right word for Miranda, though, Emily muses sometimes, for if it was then it meant that the rest of the world were monsters too. She had made a typing mistake once, a long time ago when frivolous stories of dungeons and dragons were just that – frivolous. Zonsters, she had typed, and the more she thought about it, the more she determined that that's what they were, all of them in this world; her world; the _real _world. Not monsters, nor angels or demons, yet not of the outside world either. They were all in the same boat – building – with Miranda at its helm, the only one truly invincible to the zonster-created web that they were constantly weaving around them.

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><p><strong>Well that's the end. Let me know what y'all think, anything I need to change, etcetc?<strong>

**Hope you enjoyed :)**


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